Tuesday, June 22, 2010

When I was little I memorized the way my mom would spell out our last name to people over the phone. Ready?

"B as in boy, R - A - N, S as in Sam, F as in Frank, O-R-D. BransFORD."

My sister has a variation that emphasizes the SF in the middle, which is more comprehensible when you separate it out into BRAN - SF - ORD.

All of this is to say I know I have an uncommon last name that is a bit of a mouthful, and I don't get up in arms when people misspell it in a query and I certainly never reject anyone for it. At least they're in the ballpark (and below you'll see why I'll take a misspelling over some of the other results).

I thought it might be an interesting insight into the old inbox to show the rather incredible variety of ways people address me in a query. So I kept track for a week, and here's the result.

I fully understand that mistakes happen, and I want to emphasize again that I don't reject anyone solely because they messed up the salutation. But this is really the absolute easiest thing to get right in the query, and it's a tad eye-opening that 23% missed the mark.

I used to get bent out of shape when people messed up my last name. As time has gone by, however, I've mellowed out about it quite a bit. It still irks me, however, when someone is looking at my name spelled out and still calls me McEnroe or something similar. I know, then, that the person didn't even care to try to pronounce my name right. My last name is McLemore, by the way. Pronounced: Mac-La-more :)

Thankfully, I wasn't the recipient of a more difficult name, like Mastrogiovanni, like a guy I was in high school with. Poor fellow.

I feel your pain on whole name game...I'm always like Karla with a K and that's Nellenbach...N as in Nancy, E-L-L-E-N as in Nancy, B as in boy, A-C-H **sigh** the joys of having long names that NO ONE can spell :)

I have to wonder if a truly blockbuster query ever started out with such a simple mistake or if the lack of attention to detail in the salutation is just the pre-show for an epic fail overall in most cases?

I can relate! (And, hey, at least you didn't get any to "Nathaniel"--my husband's first name is Nathan--not Nathaniel--and it drives him crazy if someone addresses him by the wrong name!)

I have a name that could be either male or female, so I get addressed as Mr. or Ms. (both of which irk me--I'm a Mrs.!) And my last name is Germanic, so people always reverse the E and the I. I just had it happen on the phone 30 minutes ago, even after I'd specifically spelled it out: S as in Sam, P as in Paul E-I D as in dog E-L. Not that complicated!

I remember learning how to spell my last name by listening to my mom spell it to someone on the phone. She spoke so quickly when she did it. For years I thought "F-as-in-Frank" was one word!

And,for what it's worth, Bransford hardly seems like it should have a place on the Challenging Last Names list. Take it from someone who was born with a frequently mispronounced name and married someone with a perpetually mispronounced name. Don't get me started on how both mispronunciations are actually derogatory words. *slinks off to ponder easy-to-say pen name*

I can laugh at this because I know of at least 2 instances where I misspelled the agents name or cut/pasted the query and forgot to change the agent's name in the one I sent.

I cut/paste email addresses to make sure I spell the names right there, but usually try and type the salutation by hand so I don't have to deal with deleting the "dot" and "at" info, and it doesn't always end well.

Martha *may* be a cut/paste error -- pasting from a list of agents, and only got the last name changed.

My last name is fairly uncommon as well; I've gotten pretty laid back about misspellings. And mispronunciations, my favorite of which is L'brand: strong emphasis on the second syllable and almost none on the first. The first is like an elided le in French? I don't even know. (It's pronounced LYE-brand, for the curious.)

Love these query stats posts! It's reassuring to see what you do and do not reject for.

I remember my first query to Kristin Nelson. This was a big deal. She's a big deal. I gotta get it right. Check and double-check everything. I'm just about to hit send and I realize my mistake. I was calling her Kristin and not Karen. Wouldn't that have been embarrassing if I had called her by the wrong first name.

Send.

Blink. Blink.

No, no wait. That's backward. Her name is Kristin. It would have been embarrassing if I had called her Karen.

When I was an editor, a lot of slush authors would call, hear my name, and ask how to spell my last name as it is tricky. But they would all assume they knew how to spell what sounds like "Karen". Nope. I spell it "Carin". So I was able to sort my submissions and still ignore the slush authors who were trying to make it into my To Read piles by pretending I'd requested them. Ha!

@Natalie Whipple, some of my worst nightmares have been about misspelled agent names. I check about three or four times before I convince myself that I am indeed not crazy and that it's spelled correctly. o_0

I want to laugh (and, well, the "Martha" salutation is pretty funny), but I can just feel myself doing something equally is dense. I haven't sent you a query (yet), and I hope that when I do, I get it right. It's nice that you're so good-natured about it.

Before I sent a query I re-read the thing like 10 times to make sure everything is good to go. Once I nearly sent a query with Dear (Blank) because I usually imput the name right before I send. Thank goodness I figured it out. That would have been embarrassing.

Vicky Bijur?? Actually, that's kind of a cool name. Nate B. sounds like you're a member of a recovery group (Agents Anonymous?).

Really, Nathan, you should be grateful. You could be stuck with a moniker like "Frohock." Would you like to know the variations of that name?

Frohawk, Fruhawk, Frohuck (which looks slightly obscene to me), and my personal favorite: Fruehause (complete with an umlaut over the u). And those are just the misspellings. The pronunciations would curl your ear hairs.

What a timely post! I received a cover letter from a candidate today addressed to Dear Sirs. Plural. As though there are a bunch of dudes sitting in a circle reading their resume.

Has anyone called you Ma'am Bransford? Wait...what exactly is the plural of Ma'am. Ma'ams? Maams? Back to work. Thanks for the post and I'm glad we're back on track with being nice and jovial as a group.

Oh my gosh, too funny. Nate B made me laugh out loud, and I agree with Kathryn - Agent Nathan does sound like some sort of secret agent. I think you should adopt that as your new query name.

From the other side, I get an alarming number of query replies addressed to Mr. Dotson. I know that Chazley is a weird name, but it's not inherently masculine! I even slyly mention my husband in the letter. Maybe I should start signing my letters "Mrs. Dotson."

Well Nathan Bransford, I can truly sympathize. Whenever you are feeling that you have a loo-loo of a monicker, think of me. My name is Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado. (Note how my already difficult surname is comprised of three words and the first and second are not capitalized...) On top of this, I live in Mexico where a woman takes on her husband's name too. You would NOT believe the versions I have received! So, take heart... it could be a LOT worse.

Actually, I'm very surprised by all the variations. I've wondered when I've sent something to a female editor how to address it if I've spent time googling and can't figure out if she is a Miss or a Mrs. I've sent them to Ms. if I'm not positive of their marital status. I've never addressed anyone by their first name unless I have met them or had personal communications with them.

I get similar name problems too. For some reason, Rebecca is apparently the hardest name to spell because I've gotten every variation possible, and then my last name is worse, and it's only four letters!

Vicky Bijur, another agent, cut and paste oversight, yes? I do like Nate B, that makes me laugh. When people I've just met shorten my name to Nat, it kind of bugs me - hate to say it, but it's the truth. So good you're relaxed about this,Martha...

Vicky Bijur made me laugh until I realized it was a cut and paste thing. It was funnier when I thought it was made up. Martha is a hoot, as well.

Nathan, I don't think your name is weird at all. Or hard to spell.

Mine is hyphenated, which is my own fault, I admit. But hyphens do really weird things to people. They can look right at my driver's license and still not get the name, spelling, or my place in the alphabet right.

Liberty my dad gets misspelled letters all the time - in fact his nickname is due to a teacher not reading his name right.

His real name is Simon but a teacher saw SMM and read out Sam and that name stuck. Very few people actually know what my dad's actual name is. Some letters come to him addressed as Samuel, which is logical but if your going to write to someone make sure the elongation that your assuming is actually the correct one.

For such a long time, I was so scared of querying. I feared the doleful eye of jaded literary agents holding the keys to the kingdom. Now I see I need not have been worried. For all my sins, I'm not a blithering idiot. I'm only an idiot on purpose. Vicky. Oh man.

People have been spelling my last name wrong since before I can remember. If I were an agent, I think I'd be like you and give them marks for trying. :) Still, it's always nice when someone gets it right.

Develop a thick skin and jump in, the water's fine! I queried for 30 years and have over 300 rejections. I wear a Shield of Gardol and I am living to tell the tale.

The rejections never hurt until recently... until the "marjorie-cartoons" were rejected. This hurts. I am submitting not just for me, but for her, and my alter ego takes rejection quite seriously. She is not pleased. Her next morph may be quite edgy.

So glad we here at least have the likelihood of clearing into the 'didn't get it wrong in the opening address' 77% just with such a simple thing.

Do you have a personal preference?

I like the method in lots of languages with a formal you and informal you, depending on how well you know the person. The formal you is ALWAYS prefaced with Mr. or Mrs or other title followed by last name.

Actually, I am not immune to cut-and-paste stupidity. I once sent a query to an agent from a template that I had created for that manuscript's query, and I missed a couple of the parts that I was supposed to personalize. Oops. I got rejected pretty much immediately.

Thanks to Agent Janet Reid's fabulous blog, I just found your fabulous and hilarious blog! What a riot. Makes me feel somewhat less bad about any of my query goofs. -Jacqui Pirl That's J A C Q U I, and P I R L spelled just like "girl" but with a "p" and pronounced like "Pearl" as in Pearl Harbor.

I think people want to believe that you are their friend and that you actually know them by name or want to know them because they write on your blog. They query you, and, bam! Reject. Should they be surprised?

People should do research on you and your company before they even bother to query you.

Anyone who calls you out of your name has an unrealistic expectation of you and from you.

Every one should be professional. Don't you deserve that much and even demand it? It is all about respect and professionalism.

You see someone who recognizes you. "Hey, Nate, you my dog. Right, we be bloggin'. I'm John Doe. You know me. Skin tight."

Very funny! I was such a wreck when sending out queries that I not only painstakingly made sure of the correct spelling of the agents name and the agency, but I re-read my query each time, even though it hadn't changed!

I managed to find an agent who overlooked much for the good of the product, in spite of my best efforts.

Great article.

Salute,Julie Dolcemaschio(D as in David, OLCE, M as in MARY, A, S as in SAM, CHIO like OSCAR)Author, TESTAROSSA

I know this post is years old, but it brought a smile to my face during a gray week so wanted to chime in.

I recall the best impression I ever made with someone's name (we won't mention the others) was when I was introduced to someone in a business setting with the last name "Schneckenburger." I spelled it back to make sure I understood and because I knew I'd need the spelling later.

She responded somewhat surprised. "Yes, that's perfect!"

Without skipping a beat I quipped. "Well, it's the common spelling isn't it?"

We both laughed, and I knew I'd made my best first impression ever.

Perhaps I should look for a literary agent with the last name Schneckenburger ;).

Really funny post. As someone who'se gone through the world with the name 'Katja Brenke' I've learned to brush off errors, both in spelling and pronunciation, even when trying to make things easier for people. My favourite was:"My name's Kat."Person writes down 'Cat'."No, with a 'k'""Oh, okay," Writes down Cak.*facepalm*

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